Re: <nettime> Aveda - Trademark on "Indigenous"

[Michael H Goldhaber <mgoldh@well.com>]

Having written about trademarks (see  "Language as a Public Good Under Threat:
The Private Ownership of  Brand Names" in "Not for sale: In Defense of Public
Goods," Anton, Fisk and Holmstrom, eds. Westview Press, 2000) I am less
sanguine about the possiblity of getting the "Indigenous" trademark reversed.
All sorts of common words are used in trademarks, from Apple Computers to
Poison as a perfume. The trademark, legally, only restricts use of the name as
a porduct label for a similar product. Indigenous as aword remains perfectly
usable by anyonen for most purposes, at least theoretically. that does not
mean however that Aveda might not try to intimidate anyone else using the
term.  Of course, if others who make or sell products similar to Aveda's line
oof beauty products had used the term Indigenous in similasr enough contexts,
and if they have the money to fight the legal cases, Aveda's trademark might
be overturned.

Best,
Michael

Michael H. Goldhaber


N Jett wrote:

> I am not a lawyer (IANAL), not yet anyways - but from my somewhat informed
> view this could easily go either way in a US court, it really depends on
> what they do with it.  Personally, I think it could easily be called a
> "generic" term, something that can't be covered by a trademark. Politically
> they will get torn up over it. If anyone is interested in challenging
> Aveda's trademark on "indigenous" here is the relevant law which explains
> the why and how trademarks can be revoked in the US:
 <...>

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